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Remember back in the early-to-mid 2000s when pretty much every cheap USB keyboard you could find started including an abundance of media keys in its layout? Nowadays, especially if you have a customized or reduced-sized mechanical keyboard, those are nowhere to be seen. Whenever our modern selves need those extra keys, we have to turn to external peripherals, and [Gary’s] Knobo is one that looks like it could’ve come straight out of a fancy retail package.

The Knobo is a small macro keypad with 8 mechanical Cherry-style keys and a clickable rotary encoder knob as its main feature. Each key and knob gesture can be customized to any macro, and with five gestures possible with the knob, that gives you a total of thirteen inputs. On top of that, the build and presentation look so sleek and clean we’d swear this was a product straight off of Teenage Engineering’s money-printing machine.

The actions you can do with those inputs range from simple media controls with a volume knob all the way to shortcuts to make a Photoshop artist’s life easier. Right now you can only reprogram the Knobo’s Arduino-based firmware with an In-Circuit Serial Programmer to change what the inputs do, but [Gary] is currently working on configuration software so that users without any programming knowledge will be able to customize it too.

Knobs are just one of those things that everyone wants to use to control their computers, much like giant red buttons. Alternative input devices can range from accessibility-designed to just downright playful. Whatever the inspiration is for them, it’s always nice to see the creativity of these projects.

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Tags:  peripherals hacks  

When presented with a pile of free electronics, sometimes you grab things for their ‘someday’ potential. Other times, you know exactly what you’re after. [Bryce] got a big old cash register for free from school because they’ve moved on to using Square or something. He scored two VFDs and a solenoid as a side effect, but he was really after that sturdy keypad and its paper-label keycaps, ripe for customization.

Two hours of reverse engineering later, he knew where the button presses were going well enough to reach for a knockoff Arduino Pro Micro and a couple of shift registers. [Bryce] wanted his hotkey-board to handle keyboard presses as well as media key input, so he went with the HID-Project library over the standard-issue Arduino version. Of course, the whole point of making your own hotkey-board is customization. For [Bryce], that means Word shortcuts and quick access to Greek letters for all those engineering reports he must write. Dig that Half-Life lambda!

What? You don’t have access to free electronics? You could make a hotkey-board out of arcade buttons. Those things can really take a beating.

Tags:  peripherals hacks  

If you hang around Hackaday long enough, pretty soon you’ll start to see some patterns emerging. As the nexus of all things awesome in the hacking world, our front page offers a unique vantage point by which you can see what’s getting folks excited this particular month, year, or decade. Right now we can tell you hackers love the Raspberry Pi, 3D printing, and perhaps above all, they can’t get enough mechanical keyboards.

So that makes the Jazzberry by [Mattis Folkestad] something of a perfect storm in the hacker world. The project uses a 3D printed enclosure to combine a Raspberry Pi 3B+ and an Ajazz AK33 mechanical keyboard into a single unit like the home computers of old. Honestly, we’re just glad he didn’t sneak an ESP8266 in there; as the resulting combination might have been enough to crash the site.

That being said, we can’t help but notice there’s a lot of open space inside the 3D printed enclosure. Right now there’s nothing inside but the Raspberry Pi, which only takes up a fraction of the internal volume. Adding a battery and hard drive would be the logical next steps, but it could also be outfitted with a suite of radios and various other hacking and security research accoutrements. We’ve seen an influx of such builds over the last few months, and the Jazzberry seems like it could make a very slick entry into this burgeoning category of mobile pentesting devices.

The STL files are designed specifically for the combination of hardware that [Mattis] used, but it shouldn’t be too difficult to modify them for your own purposes. Even if you stick with the same AK33 keyboard, an upgrade to the impressively powerful Raspberry Pi 4 would be more than worth the time fiddling with the STLs in your CAD tool of choice. If you really want to go all in, add a display and you’re well on the way to that cyberdeck you’ve always wanted.

Tags:  peripherals hacks  

If you have a portable gadget, the chances are you’ve probably used power banks before. What few could have predicted when these portable battery packs first started cropping up is that they would one day be used to power soldering irons. Dissatisfied with the options currently available on the market, [Franci] writes in with his own power bank specifically designed for use with his TS80 portable soldering iron.

The electronics side of this build is simple and easy to replicate, with 4 18650 Li-ion cells standard to most high-capacity power banks and an off-the-shelf Fast Charge module serving as the brains of the operation. The beauty of this project however lies in the design of the actual case, completely custom-made from scratch to be 3d printed.

Unlike most power banks, where the outputs stick out to the side and leave the connectors prone to being bumped and damaged, [Franci] engineered his case so the ports are stacked on top and facing inwards. That way, USB plugs are contained within the footprint of the power bank’s body, and therefore protected from bending or snapping off in the socket. He also gracefully provides all instructions needed to make your own, including a wiring guide and a reminder about safety when dealing with battery packs.

If you’re unfamiliar with the TS80 soldering iron, we’ve featured the younger sibling of the TS100 in a previous post. And if you think this power bank is too simple for you, don’t worry, we’ve got you covered.

Tags:  peripherals hacks  

When the internal rechargeable battery in his wireless mouse died, [cmot17] decided it was the perfect excuse for making a couple of modifications. The Logitech MX Master isn’t exactly a budget mouse to begin with, but that doesn’t mean there’s no room for improvement. With the addition of a larger battery and USB-C charging port, a very nice mouse just got even better.

As it turns out, there’s plenty of empty space inside the Logitech MX Master, which made it easy to add a larger battery. The original 500 mAh pack was replaced with a new 950 mAh one, which is often sold under the model number 603443. Realistically, if you wanted to go even bigger it looks like any three wire 3.7 V Li-Po pack would probably work in this application, but nearly doubling the capacity is already a pretty serious bump.

Adding the USB-C connector ended up being quite a bit trickier. [cmot17] ordered a breakout board from Adafruit that was just a little too large to fit inside the mouse. In the end, not only did some of the case need to get cut away internally, but the breakout PCB itself got a considerable trimming. Once it was shoehorned in there, a healthy dose of hot glue was used to make sure nothing shifts around.

Since [cmot17] didn’t change the mouse’s original electronics, the newly upgraded Logitech MX Master won’t actually benefit from the faster charging offered by USB-C. If anything, it’s actually going to charge slower thanks to the beefier battery. But considering how infrequently it will need to be charged with the upgraded capacity (Logitech advertised 40 days with the original 500 mAh battery), we don’t think it will be a problem.

Over the years, we’ve seen plenty of stuff crammed into the lowly mouse. Everything from a full computer, to malicious firmware code has been grafted onto that most ubiquitous of computer peripherals. So in the grand scheme of things, this is perhaps one of the most practical mouse modifications to ever grace these pages.

Tags:  peripherals hacks  

Back in the flip phone days, you could get through the whole weekend before you had to even think about plugging the thing in. But as the processing power of our mobile devices increased, so to did their energy consumption. Today you’re lucky if your phone doesn’t die before you make it home at the end of the day. To avoid the horrors of having to live without their mobile devices, many people have resorted to lugging around small “power banks” to keep their phones topped off.

That said, the “Ultimate 18650 Power Bank” created by [Kennedy Liu] is on a whole new level. Only true Road Warriors need apply for this particular piece of kit. Inside the 3D printed enclosure is…well, pretty much everything. It’s got an internal inverter to power your AC devices, a Qi wireless charging coil, an adjustable DC output, displays for all relevant voltages, and naturally plenty of USB ports to charge your gadgets. Oh, and some RGB LEDs tossed in for good measure.

[Kennedy] packed a lot of hardware into this relatively small package, and in the video after the break, shows off exactly how everything is arranged inside of this power bank. A big part of getting the whole thing together is the 3D printed frame, which includes carefully designed insets for all of the key components. So if you want to build your own version, you’ll need to get the exact same hardware he used to make sure the puzzle fits together. Luckily, he’s provided links for all the relevant components for exactly that purpose.

Now, you might be wondering about the wisdom of packing all this electronic gear into a thermoplastic enclosure. But [Kennedy] has thought about that; in addition to tacking a heatsink onto pretty much everything, he’s added fans for active cooling and a fairly robust thermal overload protection scheme. By mounting thermally controlled switches to the heatsinks of the high-output components, the system can cut power to anything getting too hot before it has a chance to melt the plastic (or worse).

Most of the DIY power banks we’ve seen in the past have been little more than a simple collection of 18650 cells, so it’s interesting to see one with so much additional functionality packed in. Admittedly some elements of the construction are, to quote the great Dave Jones, “a bit how ya doin.” But with some refinements we think it would be a very handy device to have in your arsenal.

[Thanks to slisgrinder for the tip.]

Tags:  peripherals hacks  

Mechanical keyboards with reduced key counts are all the rage these days, but while those streamlined input devices might look cool on your desk, there are times when the traditional number pad or navigation keys are quite handy. Rather than just going without, [Mattia Dal Ben] decided to put together his own mechanical auxiliary input device for when the main board just isn’t cutting it.

[Mattia] is calling his creation the YamPAD, which stands for Yet Another Mechanical numPAD. One of the major goals for the project is to produce a design that’s easy for others to replicate and customize. His PCB has a socket designed to fit an Arduino Pro Micro, which combined with the QMK firmware, offers a wide array of configuration options. All that’s left is to add in the Cherry MX switches and some 1N4148 diodes.

But if you want to take things a little further, [Mattia] has that covered as well. The PCB design has provisions for RGB LED back-lighting should you find yourself in need of crunching some numbers in the dark. There’s even a spot for a 0.91″ OLED display if you really want to take things to the next level.

As of right now, the YamPAD is just a bare PCB, but [Mattia] is planning to design a 3D printed enclosure for it soon. The sketches he’s done so far depict a printed case which we think bears more than a passing resemblance to a Wii Fit Balance Board, but of course being a fully open source project, you’ll be free to design your own case based on the PCB’s dimensions. It would be interesting to see what other kind of customization the community might come up with once the design is finalized.

If you like the idea of the YamPAD, you might also want to check out the kbord we covered back in 2017. If you want to see the full keyboard done in this DIY open hardware style, there are already some choice entries into the field.

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Tags:  peripherals hacks  

The keyboard and mouse are great, we’re big fans. But for some tasks, such as seeking around in audio and video files, a rotary encoder is a more intuitive way to get the job done. [VincentMakes] liked the idea of having a knob he could turn to adjust his system …read more

Tags:  peripherals hacks  

People always tell us that their favorite part about using a computer is mashing out the exact same key sequences over and over, day in, day out. Then, there are people like [Benni] who would rather make a microcontroller do the repetitive work at the touch of a stylish USB peripheral. Those people who enjoy the extra typing also seem to love adding new proprietary software to their computer all the time, but they are out of luck again because this dial acts as a keyboard and mouse so they can’t even install that bloated software when they work at …read more

Tags:  peripherals hacks  

Sign language can like any language be difficult to learn if you’re not immersed in it, or at least learning from someone who is fluent. It’s not easy to know when you’re making minor mistakes or missing nuances. It’s a medium with its own unique issues when learning, so if you want to learn and don’t have access to someone who knows the language you might want to reach for the next best thing: a machine that can teach you.

This project comes from three of [Bruce Land]’s senior electrical and computer engineering students, [Alicia], [Raul], and [Kerry], as part …read more

Tags:  peripherals hacks  

Winamp eat your heart out, because thanks to the Microsoft Kinect in the hands of [Samarth] there’s a new way to make your screen dance along with you. He created a music visualizer demo that takes advantage of the 3D depth camera on Kinect by outputting a fun pixelated silhouette and color changing strobe. When there are big high-hat hits or bass thumps the camera feed reacts accordingly (as any good visualizer would). He even uploaded his code for the project just in case anyone would like to take a look at it.

The visualizer utilizes the OpenKinect-Processing library which …read more

Tags:  peripherals hacks  

Alternative keyboard layouts like Colemak and Dvorak are nothing new; they allow easier access to more often used keys to reduce the strain placed on the hands during typing. Building on the popularity of the ergonomic Ergodox keyboard, [Mattia Dal Ben] has developed the Redox keyboard, the Reduced Ergodox, to make an even smaller, more ergonomic keyboard.

Like the Ergodox, the Redox uses a columnar layout, where the keys are laid out in columns, each column offset based on the corresponding finger. Where the Redox breaks away from the design of the Ergodox is the thumb keys. [Mattia] started having …read more

Tags:  peripherals hacks  

The new hotness for DIY electronics is mechanical keyboards, and over the past few years we’ve seen some amazing innovations. This one is something different. It adds an analog sensor to nearly any mechanical key switch, does it with a minimal number of parts, and doesn’t require any modification of the switch itself. It’s a reddit thread and imgur post, but the idea is just so good we can overlook the documentation on this one.

The key development behind this type of sensor is realizing that nearly every mechanical keyswitch (Cherry MX, Kalth, Gateron) has a spring in the bottom. …read more

Tags:  peripherals hacks  

This project of [Nathan]’s certainly has a playful straightforwardness about it. His Skype ‘Kiss’ Interface has a simple job: to try to create a more intuitive way to express affection within the limits of using Skype. It all came about from a long distance relationship for which the chat program was the main means of communicating. Seeking a more intuitive and personal means of expressing some basic affection, [Nathan] created a capacitive touch sensor that, when touched with the lips, sends the key combination for either a kissy face emoji or the red lips emoji, depending on the duration.

Capacitive …read more

Tags:  peripherals hacks  

Have you ever looked at your cat and thought “You know, my kitten really needs an electric skateboard!” Probably not, but this seems to have happened to [Kim Pimmel] while looking at his cat MIDI, so he decided to build one. This process involved building a simple, low powered skateboard with a Feather mainboard and motor controller combined with a laser-cut switch mechanism. When [Kim] puts a treat into the mechanism, the cat pulls the switch and the skateboard moves forward, moving into a brave new e-skateboarding feline future. MIDI looks somewhat unimpressed by this whole business, but I suspect …read more

Tags:  peripherals hacks  

The Ergonomic Handheld Mouse / Keyboard Alternative from [Shervin Emami] is an all-in-one solution for your keyboarding and cursor moving needs.

The core of this build is a ‘grip-strengthening’ device that’s sold to guitarists. While the actual benefit of these devices for guitarists is questionable — there are a few anecdotes any music teacher will tell you about classical pianists ruining their hands with similar devices — the device itself can be converted into a fantastic chording keyboard. All you really need for a full-functioned keyboard is a few buttons in a rugged shell, and this ‘grip strengthener’ has that …read more

Tags:  peripherals hacks  

An outstanding number of things most people take for granted present enormous hurdles for people with physical disabilities, including interaction with computers and other digital resources. Assistive technologies such as adaptive switches allow users who cannot use conventional buttons or other input devices to interact with digital devices, and while there are commercial offerings there is still plenty of room for projects like [Cassio Batista]’s DIY Low-cost Assistive Technology Switches.

[Cassio]’s project focuses on non-contact switches, such as proximity and puff-based activations. These are economical, DIY options aimed at improving accessibility for people who are unable to physically push even …read more

Tags:  peripherals hacks  

When you’re debugging a board which has an ESP32, Raspberry Pi, or Arduino, it’s easy to slap on a small LCD display or connect via WiFi to see what’s wrong. At least, that’s what the kids are doing. But what if you’re old-school or you don’t have one of those pimped-out, steroid-filled boards? A resistor and an LED will often suffice. Powering the LED means one thing and not powering it means another. And with seven more LEDs you can even display 0-256 in binary.

[Miguel] is clearly in the latter camp. To make debugging-with-LEDs easy, he’s come up with …read more

Tags:  peripherals hacks  

It’s hardly news that mechanical keyboard users love their keyboards.  When it comes to custom keyboards, though, [Cameron Sun] has taken things to the next level, by designing his own keyboard and then having the case custom milled from aluminum.  If a Macbook and an ErgoDox had a baby, it would look like this!

[Cameron] had been using a 60 percent keyboard (a keyboard with around 60% of the keys of a standard keyboard) but missed the dedicated arrow keys, as well as home/end and pgup/pgdown keys. Thus began the quest for the ultimate keyboard! Or, at least, the ultimate …read more

Tags:  peripherals hacks  

This set of PVC cranks make you work for your game of Puzzle Bobble, also known as Bust-a-Move. It uses a little cannon centered at the bottom of the screen to pop bubbles based on like colors. There is a cartoon character that cranks as hard as it can to aim that cannon, and this hack [...]

Tags:  cannon controller set cartoon-character cranks peripherals hacks  

What if we could do away with mice and just wear a thimble as a control interface? That’s the concept behind Magic Finger. It adds as movement tracking sensor and RGB camera to your fingertip. Touch screens are great, but what if you want to use any surface as an input? Then you grab the [...]

Tags:  finger magic input magic-finger touch-screens control-interface peripherals hacks  

What if we could do away with mice and just wear a thimble as a control interface? That’s the concept behind Magic Finger. It adds as movement tracking sensor and RGB camera to your fingertip. Touch screens are great, but what if you want to use any surface as an input? Then you grab the [...]

Tags:  finger magic input magic-finger touch-screens control-interface peripherals hacks  

This is a special controller that [Gary Scott] built to help train camera operators. The pan and tilt controls on high-end movie cameras use wheels to pan and tilt smoothly. This rig can be built rather inexpensively and used to practice following a subject as you would with a camera. This is where the project [...]

Tags:  pan camera tilt gary-scott tilt-wheel pan-tilt movie-cameras peripherals hacks  

In an effort to improve his Call of Duty gaming experience, Reddit user [Harbingerx81] built a custom controller out of an Airsoft gun. Not only does this gun feature all the buttons and joysticks normally found on a stock xbox controller, it’s also loaded up with accelerometers and gyros so his on-screen character points his [...]

Tags:  controller duty call custom-controller screen-character airsoft-gun peripherals hacks  

One of the problems future engineers spend a lot of class time solving is the issue of odometry for robots. It’s actually kind of hard to tell how far a robot has traveled after applying power to its wheels, but [John] has a pretty nifty solution to this problem. He converted an optical mouse into [...]

Tags:  odometry robotic mouse john nifty-solution optical-mouse peripherals hacks  

This visually stunning tape ticker prints out [Horatius Steam's] emails for him. It watches his email address for a secret trigger phrase in the subject line. Sure, thermal receipt printer projects are becoming rather common, but we can’t remember seeing one that took this much time and effort to make it into a showpiece. The [...]

Tags:  tape horatius ticker thermal-receipt-printer showpiece subject-line peripherals hacks  

This role reversal is quite entertaining. While the game Angry Birds is a virtual realization of knocking over stuff with a sling-shot, Super Angry Birds adds a physical control element back to the virtual game. It’s silly, but well-executed. The main controller takes advantage a part which we don’t see used very often. It’s a [...]

Tags:  game birds angry control-element virtual-game role-reversal peripherals hacks  

It’s a simple fact of gaming that controllers are more suited for shooters, while the WASD + mouse control of the PC gaming master race is more suited for real-time strategy games and MMOs. [Gabriel] wanted to challenge this idea, so he put together a controller combining the best of a mouse and keyboard for some hand-held RTS [...]

Tags:  controller mmos gaming gabriel real-time-strategy-games real-time-strategy gaming-master peripherals hacks  

[Vinod's] latest project lets him use a TV remote control as a mouse. It may not sound like much, but he did it with a minimum of hardware and packed in the maximum when it comes to features. He’s using an ATmega8 to read the remote control signals and provide USB connectivity. With the V-USB [...]

Tags:  use mouse control vinod control-signals atmega8 tv-remote-control peripherals hacks  

You can get your hands on a Brother thermal label printer for $65-75. But if you don’t want to buy the Brother branded continuous feed paper for it you’re out of luck. Unless you pull off this hack which lets you use any thermal paper you want with a Brother QL-500 printer. The printer is [...]

Tags:  printer paper brother thermal-label-printer continuous-rolls continuous-feed peripherals hacks  

This Starcraft controller was designed as a contest entry. The goal of the contest was to provide a custom controller for the Starcraft Real-Time-Strategy game that shared some of the features seen in First Person Shooter controllers. The design started as rough sketches. From the there button layout was prototyped before actually building a virtual [...]

Tags:  custom controller starcraft time-strategy-game first-person-shooter real-time-strategy peripherals hacks  

At first look we thought this was a plotter, but it’s really more of a dot matrix (or line matrix) printer. [Bruno] whipped this up using parts from a DVD optical drive. It is capable of moving the pen along the Z and X axes, and feeding the paper along the Y axis. The video [...]

Tags:  printer matrix pen bruno line-matrix-printer dot-matrix optical-drive peripherals hacks  

A bit of clever design lets you mount a screen and gaming hardware right on this controller. [Valentin Ivanov] had already been using the Wii Classic Controller Pro as an input for his Gadgeteer-based projects. He wanted a way to marry the project board, display, and controller into one single unit. We’re huge fans the [...]

Tags:  wii classic gaming controller-pro valentin-ivanov gaming-rig peripherals hacks  

Whether you’re using emacs, vi, or vim, your fingers will be performing acrobatics on your keyboard because of the mouseless interface. [alevchuk] thought his feet could be used as a way to reduce the amount of keystrokes, so he built the vim clutch. It’s a USB-enabled foot pedal that will insert characters before the cursor [...]

Tags:  clutch vim keyboard mouseless acrobatics peripherals hacks  

If you’ve got a few reel-to-reel recordings of 1940s radio, how do you transfer those to a digital medium? [Evan Long] and his dad used a credit card reader built for the iPhone to transfer a vintage [Art Kassel] recording from magnetic tape to the digital domain of .MP3s. A few months ago, we saw [...]

Tags:  recording credit card art-kassel evan-long credit-card-reader digital-medium peripherals hacks  

This volumetric display really shows a lot of potential. And it has just the right balance of simplicity and ingenuity. The rig is being developed by [Michel David] and involves a screen shaped like a helix, and a laser which shines through an optical filter disk. The moving parts of the device are mounted on [...]

Tags:  display volumetric davinci michel-david optical-filter moving-parts peripherals hacks  

It’s entirely possible to use a computer without the aid of a mouse or trackpad. Shift and arrow keys will get you very far, but that is entirely too taxing. [Stephen] came up with a really neat way to control a mouse with your voice, a project that is sure to find its way onto [...]

Tags:  way voice mouse stephen arrow-keys trackpad peripherals hacks  

[Viktor] is working on salvaging parts from a dead laptop. In his eyes the biggest gem to be had is the touchpad, so he set out to see if he could make the touchpad a standalone device. You might be envisioning the many hells of interfacing this with a microcontroller and writing firmware to measure and translate [...]

Tags:  standalone touchpad laptop standalone-device laptop-touchpad microcontroller peripherals hacks  

[Jean] wrote in eager to share his latest project, a standalone temperature logger with USB connectivity. Back in November, [Jean] found himself wanting a temperature logger that was roughly the size of a USB memory stick. What he found on the market was not quite adequate in terms of price or size, so he decided [...]

Tags:  temperature logger usb jean temperature-logger usb-memory connectivity peripherals hacks  

We see a pretty steady stream of projects that use Xbee modules. They’re one of the more reliable and popular ways to add a wireless aspect to your project. But we don’t often see them used to their full potential. Since there’s a microcontroller onboard, many simple tasks can be accomplished without the need for [...]

Tags:  xbee directly joystick microcontroller steady-stream peripherals hacks  

Gaming has infiltrated everything around us. It seems that any time a control interface is needed, the first thought to many current hacker’s minds are the familiar controls from the video games we grew up with. In this example, [eljaywasi] needed a way to control the wavelength of light coming out of a laser. We [...]

Tags:  wavelength-of-light control-interface gamepad peripherals hacks  

This one is so simple, and works so well, we’d call it a hoax if April 1st hadn’t already passed us by. But we’re confident that what [William Myers] and [Guo Jie Chin] came up with exists, and we want one of our own. The project is a method of drawing in 3 dimensions using ultrasonic [...]

Tags:  hoax call whiteboard william-myers jie-chin april-1st peripherals hacks  

A company called Square is giving out free credit card readers that turn any iPhone or iPad into a Point of Sale terminal. [Steve] got a hold of one of these tiny peripherals and did what any sane person would do: tear it apart and learn how it works. This bit of hardware is a [...]

Tags:  head credit tape steve credit-card-readers ipad point-of-sale-terminal peripherals hacks  

If you’ve ever scoffed at the idea of opening up iTunes every four minutes to rate a song, [Steve] is the guy to talk to. He built a small hardware box with five illuminated buttons to rate the current song playing on iTunes. This build comes after [Steve]‘s earlier Arduino-based rating box that was functional, but didn’t [...]

Tags:  rating box rate steve four-minutes peripherals hacks  

The laser printer portion of this all-in-one machine gave up the ghost and [Entropia] couldn’t get it working again. But the scanner was still functioning so he decided to separate the scanner from its dead printer module. The model in question is a Samsung SCX-4200. The design is actually perfect for separation because the scanner sits [...]

Tags:  printer scanner separating samsung-scx-4200 printer-module broken-printer peripherals hacks  

With a simple digital TV USB capture card, you can build your own software defined radio or spectrum analyzer. While it may not be as cool as [Jeri Ellsworth]‘s SDR, it’s still very useful and only requires $20 in hardware. The only piece of hardware required for this build is a USB FM/DTV capture device with the [...]

Tags:  radio usb Software tv-capture-card jeri-ellsworth software-defined-radio peripherals hacks  

A bit of mechanical ingenuity makes building this foot-controlled mouse into a fun project. It consists of a platform which hosts one pedal for each foot. The right foot controls the movement of the cursor, and the left is responsible for the buttons. The guts of a wireless mouse do most of the electrical work for this [...]

Tags:  foot foot-controlled mouse fun-project wireless-mouse electrical-work peripherals hacks  

Because his computer is gradually turning into an all-inclusive media display device, [Shawn] figured a remote to control the volume and a video playlist would be a reasonable addition. TV remotes for computers have been around for years, but [Shawn] decided to go the DIY route and build his own computer remote. For the build, [...]

Tags:  control device computer shawn tv-remotes video-playlist own-computer peripherals hacks  

This USB slingshot controller really brought a smile to our faces. Part of it is the delightfully silly promo video you’ll find after the break. [Simon Ford] combined nature and technology to bring this USB-enabled slingshot into existence. The frame itself is from a branch he found in the Epping Forrest of London. He whittled [...]

Tags:  controller usb slingshot forrest simon-ford london epping-forrest peripherals hacks  

Even though iTunes and it’s song rating system has been around for over a decade now, [Steve] still hasn’t gotten around to assigning ratings to his vast library of MP3s. We can’t blame him – who wants to pull up iTunes every four minutes and assign a star rating to each song individually? To solve [...]

Tags:  vast-library s-song four-minutes peripherals hacks  

Hackaday has seen dozens of Morse code keyboards over the years, but [Hudson] at NYC Resistor finally managed to give that idea the justice it deserves. He built a USB Morse code keyboard with the same type of telegraph key the pros use. For his project, [Hudson] got his hands on a wonderful iambic paddle that is [...]

Tags:  morse-code telegraph-key hackaday peripherals hacks  

Text LCD’s are handy for any occasion, a printer port on your PC is also darn handy as well. Mix together and add in a splash of linux and you get a very handy Linux device driver for a 16×2 LCD connected to the parallel port. Electrically the LCD is wired up in a typical [...]

Tags:  lcd linux port linux-device-driver space-text screen-space peripherals hacks  

Having a communal music collection being played on random can be really fun. You experience new music and get to hear old favorites. However, not everyone shares the same taste. Sometimes, you absolutely need to just skip the song coming on, for the sake of everyone involved. That was how the Panic button was born. [...]

Tags:  panic-button bad-music old-favorites peripherals hacks  

Because switching apps to change a song is such a taxing ordeal, [Oscar Celma] and [Ching-Wei Chen] decided to use their collective brainpower to change Last.FM playlists with their minds. They call their project Buddhafy, and it works by taking off-the-shelf EEG hardware and tying it into music streaming APIs. For the build, the guys used [...]

Tags:  control playlist mind chen oscarcelma collective-brainpower wei-chen celma peripherals hacks  

Upon first sight there will be no doubt in anyone’s mind that this is a hacker’s keyboard. [Tim Tyler] built the odd-looking conglomeration of keys a few years ago with the goal of improving the man-machine interface. Why waste all that thumb space with just one long keyboard when you can have at least nine [...]

Tags:  workout microswitch keyboard tim-tyler man-machine-interface conglomeration peripherals hacks  

After over a year of work, [dmw] is nearly done with his Humble Hacker Keyboard. It’s a keyboard that has been influenced by some pretty crazy looking designs, but meets all of [dmw]‘s needs for a compact, programmer-oriented key layout that’s easy to type on. [dmw] posted a pseudo-build log  over at the geekhack keyboard forums. [...]

Tags:  dmw keyboard scratch programmer peripherals hacks  

Apparently, there’s some sort of sporting event being televised this weekend that has been historically used as an excuse to buy a big-screen TV. [Joel] wanted a huge-screen TV on the cheap, so he converted an overhead projector to something he can use with his XBox. Using a bare LCD panel with an overhead projector is [...]

Tags:  lcd overhead projector joel transparency-sheets overhead-projector lcd-panel peripherals hacks  

If you’ve been thinking of adding some tactile controls and readouts for your flight simulators this guide should give you the motivation to get started with the project. [Paul] explains how to build controls and connect them to the simulator data. He makes it look easy, and thanks the interface examples in his code it [...]

Tags:  tactile simulator flight paul flight-simulators interface-examples tactile-controls peripherals hacks  

As masters of technology, our desks are often cluttered with odds and ends. We have cables spewing out of every nook, and our computer ports full. The last thing we really want is more stuff getting in the way or buried under piles of technical documentation when adding something like a USB hub. That is [...]

Tags:  keyboard shove hub computer-ports usb-hub odds-and-ends peripherals hacks  

[Shawn] wrote in to share his post outlining the addition of rapid fire to an Xbox 360 controller. He’s going all out with this mod by including a pretty beefy microcontroller. But you get a lot of functionality for that. You can just make out the trimpot below and to the right of the green [...]

Tags:  fire controller xbox shawn trimpot xbox-360 rapid-fire peripherals hacks  

If you’re looking for a custom controller for a MAME cabinet build, CNC machine, or just want to control a robot build, you’re going to need to wire up some buttons. You could wire up a bunch of buttons to a microcontroller, but if you use an old computer keyboard the work is already done [...]

Tags:  custom movie matrix mame-cabinet custom-controller computer-keyboard peripherals hacks  

No matter how good the intentions or how strong your hack-fu may be, sometimes you just can’t cross the finish line with every project. Here’s one that we hate to see go unfinished, but it’s obvious that a ton of work already went into reclaiming these smart white-board projectors and it’s time to cut the [...]

Tags:  projector fruit project t-cross finish-line peripherals hacks  

Many companies today try to simplify life by over complicating the keyboard. Microsoft has been doing it since 2001. If you love your ergonomic keyboard, but hate that “function lock” key, there are plenty of options out there for you to try. The least complicated way is to either modify some XML or just set [...]

Tags:  lock function keyboard ergonomic-keyboard lock-key xml peripherals hacks  

[Aaron's] arcade controller really makes us want to put in a button order. There aren’t any secrets hidden in his design or fabrication, but he did a remarkably clean job of putting it together. The housing is a writing box he bought at the hardware store (but he also shows off an emtpy Xbox 360 [...]

Tags:  controller button arcade aaron arcade-controller xbox-360 hardware-store peripherals hacks  

[David] sent in a nice project to demonstrate augmented reality with ARtoolkit and discuss the deep philosophical underpinnings of the meaning of nothingness. The good news is he was able to create a volume control button on a sheet of paper with a marker. The bad news is the philosophical treatment is a bit weak; [...]

Tags:  reality augmented news david volume-control-button philosophical-underpinnings ex-nihilo peripherals hacks  

The news was abuzz yesterday with coverage of a study released by Columbia University researchers warning consumers that HP laser printers are wide open to remote tampering and hacking. The researchers claim that the vast majority of printers from HP’s LaserJet line accept firmware updates without checking for any sort of digital authentication, allowing malicious [...]

Tags:  fire laser news hp-laser-printers digital-authentication firmware-updates peripherals hacks  

This one must have been fun to come up with because it’s got it all. There’s hardware, firmware, networking, and server scripts all working together to create a filing, scanning document center for your business. The best part is that [Janis Jakaitis] was tasked to do this as part of his job (we’re sure there’s [...]

Tags:  automate part Hardware janis-jakaitis server-scripts document-center networking peripherals hacks  

[Ryan] sent in a little project he’s been working on. After he got his hands on a pair of DJ Hero controllers, he figured he needed to pull controller data off them. After plugging in his two DJ Hero controllers to a breakout board, [Ryan] discovered the turntables communicate on an I2C bus. A Teensy [...]

Tags:  etch sketch project ryan hero controller-data breakout turntables peripherals hacks  

Wood and electronics don’t generally mix nowadays, but if you yearn back to a time when radios and the like had a nice wooden finish, this wooden computer case may be for you. Combine that with a Wooden keyboard enclosure, and maybe even a LCD monitor stand and you’ll have a setup that should fit [...]

Tags:  computer case wooden wood wooden-computer-case monitor-stand lcd-monitor peripherals hacks  

[Nav] wanted to change his keyboard mapping for one particular keyboard, rather than on each operating system. He used an AT90USBKey as a replacement PCB by soldering to all of the contacts on the key matrix. This allows him to remap the keys by following onscreen prompts. The board enumerates as an HID device, and [...]

Tags:  mapping hardware-based keyboard nav keyboard-remapping keyboard-mapping onscreen peripherals hacks  

[Alex] wanted to play video games with an arcade stick and buttons, but got sticker shock after seeing the price of commercially available controllers that connect to a computer via USB. He set out to build his own and ended up with the controller-in-a box that you see above. At first he tried using an [...]

Tags:  controller box arcade alex arcade-controller arcade-stick sticker-shock peripherals hacks  

[Fred] likes to squeeze every cycle possible out of his graphics card. But sometimes pushing the clock speed too high causes corruption. He figured out a way to turn a knob to adjust the clock speed while your applications are still running. The actuator seen above is a Griffin Powermate 3.0. It’s a USB peripheral which [...]

Tags:  paddle speed clock griffin-powermate fred clock-speed actuator peripherals hacks  

[Glenn] sent us an update on his FrankenKindle project. You might remember this hack from back in July. [Glenn] is modding the device to make it easier for his sister, who has Cerebral Palsy, to use. The latest revision adds a case for the hardware. The silver button pad is what remains of the V.Reader (a children’s [...]

Tags:  glenn frankenkindle progress v.reader button-pad silver-button cerebral-palsy peripherals hacks  

[Shawn McCombs] is up to no good with his first Teensy project. The board you see above takes the input from a PS2 keyboard and converts it to a USB connection. Oh, and did we mention that it also keeps track of everything you type as well? From the beginning the project was intended to be a [...]

Tags:  usb keyboard project shawn-mccombs ps2-keyboard usb-connection peripherals hacks  

[Mr.Pantz] pointed us to a web page  we thought you would find interesting. It deals with hacking PC lock using a Universal Software Radio Peripheral (USRP) . Following the good practice of logging off or locking your workstation while your not at it, it is darn hard to get users to actually do it. These [...]

Tags:  unlocking web Wireless mr.pantz pc-locks pc-proximity software-radio universal-software proximity peripherals hacks  

For some reason this project makes us think of the Light Cycles in Tron. You know, the bike forms around the rider after they grab onto the wand that makes up its controls? Certainly you’re not going to see a car form out of thin air, but this driving controller let you grab onto nothing to [...]

Tags:  wheel-controller light-cycles driving-game peripherals hacks  

While some people know that you should be wary of USB drives with unknown origins, the same care is rarely, if ever exercised with USB peripherals. The security firm Netragard recently used this to their advantage when performing a penetration test at a client’s facility. When the client ruled out the use of many common [...]

Tags:  usb client penetration unknown-origins usb-peripherals penetration-test peripherals hacks  

[Joshua Nobel] and the team at undef came up with a receipt printer game for the OFFF 2011 festival in Barcelona. The game is a small openFrameworks app that prints a maze on a thermal printer. A ‘car’ is guided through the maze with input taken from a DualShock 3 controller. The game is limited [...]

Tags:  receipt-printer thermal-printer maze peripherals hacks  

Finally, there’s a way you can feel like a real bad-ass while you’re formatting those TPS reports. It’s all thanks to this computer mouse built inside the skull of a dog. [Shannon Larratt] dug through his collection of skulls and came up with this one because it fits nicely in the palm of your hand. [...]

Tags:  way bone mouse shannon shannon-larratt tps-reports palm-of-your-hand peripherals hacks  

Although virtual reality was the wave of the future in the early 90′s, it hasn’t really taken off the way we would have liked. Sometimes a great idea just takes time for the technology to catch up to it (Aeolipile anyone?). Now that tiny projectors, realistic FPS games, and eye tracking systems have come down [...]

Tags:  reality wave virtual pico-projector fps-games eye-tracking wave-of-the-future peripherals hacks  

[Nicholas C Lewis, Patrick Hannan, Jared Knutzen, and Joy Markham], students from the University of Washington, have recently taken the wraps off a project which they have been collaborating on, a DIY inkjet printer. The group set out to construct a low cost, open source inkjet printer for personal use that utilizes standard inkjet technology. [...]

Tags:  printer inkjet diy patrick-hannan joy-markham jared-knutzen nicholas-c-lewis inkjet-technology nicholas-c inkjet-printer peripherals  

[Ginge] sent in this fun little project. He gave himself 3 hours to complete a hack (not including research time) and managed to come up with this cool activity meter. He handles the entire project like it is some kind of contest. Ground rules are laid out, requiring practicality of the final product, minimum investment, [...]

Tags:  quick meter project activity-meter research-time minimum-investment peripherals hacks  

Serial communication is still an important part of our embedded world. Typically we use a 3 wire setup (RX TX and GROUND) and hope that everything goes according to plan. Though this works for most experimenters, sometimes its not the most ideal situation.  This is where [simmonmt's] handiwork comes in adding hardware handshaking to a [...]

Tags:  Hardware avr handshaking hardware-handshaking serial-communication experimenters peripherals hacks  

[Phik] wrote in to share his very first microcontroller project with us. He built a bluetooth remote in an old Nintendo 64 controller to control an audio application on his computer. He had been building up the individual modules with the controller in mind for some time, but initially had no idea what kind of [...]

Tags:  controller phik bluetooth nintendo-64-controller n64-controller microcontroller-project peripherals hacks  

[Ken] visited our site looking for case modding stuff a little while back, but more importantly he came back to show off his latest project. Using a jewelry box found at our favorite place, the thrift store, he converted it into a 2.5 inch USB drive enclosure. Almost instantly he found that this particular jewelry [...]

Tags:  enclosure thrift drive ken hard-drive-enclosure jewelry-box thrift-store peripherals hacks  

Ever wanted to increase the battery performance in your wireless mouse? [Davetech] shows you the way with this guide for converting a mouse from AA to lithium batteries. We were delighted by his hack-tacular approach that seems to have a nice little work-around at each step in the process. He grinds down the plastic battery [...]

Tags:  cellphone battery mouse lithium-batteries battery-performance wireless-mouse peripherals hacks  

[Ben] needed an input device that would operate where electrical signals and magnetic fields wouldn’t be tolerated, so he ended up running fiberoptics instead of electricity to a mouse. [Ben] ran some glass fiber from the mouse to quadrature encoders to get the x and y velocity. Mouse clicks are read by modifying the existing buttons [...]

Tags:  fiberoptic input mouse ben stray-magnetic-fields y-velocity electrical-signals peripherals hacks  

After many delays, restarts, and years, [Vince ] has finally finished his Super VMW CPU Meter. Featuring six alphanumeric red led displays, two 10 segment bar graphs, twelve red LEDs, and six color LEDs its got plenty of “screen” space to show all sorts of useful information. Electrically its driven by four SAA1064 LED driver [...]

Tags:  super cpu vmw vince saa1064 cpu-meter bar-graphs peripherals hacks  

[BiOzZ] wanted to try a different keyboard layout than the ubiquitous Qwerty, so he grabbed an old keyboard and converted it to the Dvorak setup. This was accomplished by first popping off all of the keys from the black keyboard seen above, and boy did he find a mess underneath. It was nothing that a [...]

Tags:  alternate biozz keyboard keyboard-layouts alternate-keyboard keyboard-layout peripherals hacks  

[Tony Blanch] built his own motion controller for playing House of the Dead. It should work with any shooter that follows the ‘rail’ type of game play (your character is not free walking, but moves along a set path beyond your control). Two parts come together to make this happen. The first is the Nerf [...]

Tags:  dead house nerf tony-blanch free-walking motion-controller blanch peripherals hacks  

Printing PCBs using the toner transfer method works pretty well, but there are some downsides, such as incomplete trace transfers and the like. HackHut user [rucalgary] decided to go the inkjet route instead, and picked up an Epson printer on clearance at his local electronics shop. This method is not new by any means, but [...]

Tags:  method printing direct pcbs epson-printer peripherals hacks  

[Austyn] is currently working on reverse engineering a PlayStation 3 SixAxis controller’s USB communications. You may be thinking that this has already been done but [Austyn] was unable to find useful source code so he’s started his own project called libopenaxis. The process he used to sniff out USB communications makes for an interesting read. [...]

Tags:  controller sixaxis usb austyn controller-usb ps3-sixaxis-controller peripherals hacks  

[Ben Krasnow] is working on a force-feedback joystick. It centers around the concept of an air muscle which transfers pressure into linear motion. He cites another air muscle project as part of the inspiration in his build, but where he’s gone with it is one of the better uses for these blow-up components that we’ve [...]

Tags:  air muscle joystick ben-krasnow force-feedback-joystick air-muscles muscle-project peripherals hacks  

[Adrian] has a friend that, due to an accident, can no longer play Xbox games in the standard fashion. His friend is unfortunately unable to hold the game pad properly, and no longer has the manual dexterity to reach the shoulder buttons and triggers on the top side of his Xbox 360 controller. Being the [...]

Tags:  friend controller xbox adrian manual-dexterity shoulder-buttons game-pad peripherals hacks  

Here’s a step-by-step guide for printing etch resist directly to copper clad boards. Two methods of making printed circuit boards at home have long dominated as the favorites; using photo-resist, and the toner-transfer method. The latter involves printing board artwork on a laser printer and then ironing it onto the copper clad. We’ve seen some [...]

Tags:  printing copper etch board-artwork printed-circuit-boards making-printed-circuit-boards peripherals hacks  

Strap yourself in, it’s going to be a bumpy ride. No really, if you don’t believe us, check out the video after the break of this bouncing and rolling game system. [Shawn McGrath] built it to compliment the gaming experience for Dyad, an indie game for which he is a developer. His wife was kind [...]

Tags:  game feedback force shawn-mcgrath bumpy-ride game-system force-feedback peripherals hacks  

Instructibles user [Shadowwynd] shows us a great way to build a joystick/mouse device for people with special accessibility needs. When faced with a case that involved a man with very limited mobility as well as a limited budget, [shadowwynd] set out to find a cost effective solution to computer navigation. They found that his client [...]

Tags:  shadowwynd mouse joystick cost-effective-solution computer-navigation mouse-device peripherals hacks  

What if there were only two steps for making your own printed circuit board; print, etch? That’s what [Jeff Gough] has been working on and he presented the process in his talk at 27C3. In the first portion of the video after the break [Jeff] talks about various industrial PCB manufacturing processes in a depth [...]

Tags:  pcb printable etch jeff jeff-gough printed-circuit-board manufacturing-processes peripherals hacks  

[MikyMouse] cracked open a couple different optical mice (or is it mouses?) in order to play with the data communications coming off of the chips inside. Once he figured out the protocol, it wasn’t too hard to grab the data for use in his own projects. The chip that controls the mouse is one of [...]

Tags:  pic patching mouse mikymouse optical-mice optical-mouse peripherals hacks  

It turns out that hacking together a security keypad is remarkably simple if you know what you’re doing. [Don] needed to add a keypad with an RFID reader on it. He had previously built a USB RFID reader and thought he could integrate those concepts into the new unit. He once again started with a [...]

Tags:  security keypad rfid don rfid-reader access-panel peripherals hacks  

[Mike Lu] likes to add serial ports to his routers to use for debugging but he didn’t want to drill holes in his new RT-N12. After a bit of head-scratching he thought about repurposing the four unused wires on one of the RJ45 Ethernet connectors. This would allow him to interface with the necessary signals [...]

Tags:  serial connector port mike-lu necessary-signals ethernet-connectors serial-ports peripherals hacks  

[Peter Skaarup's] been re-living the past by playing old-school games in DOSBox. He’s using a mouse as the controller but longed for the auto-fire button that many joysticks used to have. Instead of looking around for a gamepad with this feature he decided to add an auto-fire button to the mouse. He incorporated a PIC 10F200, along with [...]

Tags:  button mouse computer peter-skaarup auto-fire fire-button school-games peripherals hacks  

The most common email we get is “how do I learn how to hack things?”. It looks looks like [ladyada] gets that question a lot too. She didn’t waste any time writing up a step by step guide to reverse engineering USB devices, specifically the Kinect. She goes into depth on how USB works, how [...]

Tags:  step Learn usb engineer step-guide peripherals hacks  

If you don’t mind getting your fingers a little dirty you can replace your mouse with a piece of paper. [Dr. West] made this touchpad himself, which measures signals at the corners of the paper using four voltage dividers. The paper has been completely covered with graphite from a pencil (which we see in hacks [...]

Tags:  mind touchpad paper dr.-west voltage-dividers dr-west peripherals hacks  

We usually shy away from posting about commercial products. Strap on a bib to protect your shirt from the drool, watching the video after the break will show you why we had to post about this. [Valentin Heun] and his cohorts developed this three-dimensional controller using tools common to the hacker community. The patent-pending device uses [...]

Tags:  arduino mouse futuristic valentinheun hacker-community 3d-mouse patent-pending peripherals hacks  

Okay, for many the fact that this typewriter plays Zork on paper instead of a CRT is the fascinating part of this hack. But we love the implementation that makes the keys of the device an input and output. The electric typewriter has been fitted with a solenoid for each key (wow, that’s a lot [...]

Tags:  zork typewriter fact electric-typewriter solenoid input-and-output peripherals hacks  

This is a keyboard alternative that [Sebastian] is building from two Apple Magic Trackpads. The multitouch devices are a good platform for this because they’re designed to pick up several events at the same time. To prototype the locations of the keys he’s using printable transparency sheets. He gives you a sense of where the [...]

Tags:  keyboard trackpad concept sebastian apple-magic transparency-sheets prototype peripherals hacks  

Do people enjoy wasting 300$ on a bulky convoluted system, that only works for special “Teacher Edition” calculators, and is several years out of date; E.G. the TI-Presenter? [Benryves] certainly does not. So instead of purchasing a TI-Presenter, he made his own TV out system for the TI brand of calculators by using an ATmega168, [...]

Tags:  ti-presenter link system teacher-edition e.g. ti-calculators own-tv peripherals hacks  

[Patman2700] has a nice scope for his paintball gun that uses a red dot instead of cross-hairs. The problem is that he kept forgetting to turn it off which ended up running the batteries down frequently. His solution to the problem was to get rid of the toggle switch used to turn it on and replace [...]

Tags:  waterproof problem switch toggle-switch paintball-gun red-dot peripherals hacks  

[Matt] brought together a TV remote and cordless phone to add a locator system to the remote control. One of the best features of a cordless phone is the pager button on the base. When you press it the handset beeps until found. Matt gutted one and got rid of the unnecessary parts. He then cracked open [...]

Tags:  paging phone system matt paging-system beeps cordless-phone peripherals hacks  

Inkjet printheads are a pretty rare thing to see done in home workshops. We would love to see more and got really excited when we saw this single nozzle, drop on demand, head being built. using a piezo disk intended to be a cheap buzzer and some reprap magic, [Johnrpm] got some results. [Madscifi] has [...]

Tags:  print head diy inkjet-printheads piezo-disk home-workshops peripherals hacks  

Forget hacking an easy button, grab a couple of those outdated CD-Rs and build your own switch for that next project. This was developed with handicapped accessibility in mind; assembled easily with common products and it’s fairly robust. In fact, our junk box has everything you need except the adhesive backed copper foil. Combine two [...]

Tags:  switch build button copper-foil common-products junk-box peripherals hacks  

[Der_picknicker] wrote in to let us know about a guide to building OpenWRT images for the dockstar (translated). What they end up with is a nice little network attached storage device that runs SAMBA and subversion under the umbrella of OpenWRT. We looked at flashing and building OpenWRT images for this device back in July. The [...]

Tags:  building dockstar openwrt image-building network-attached-storage storage-device peripherals hacks  

[Arthur] built an IR receiver to use with XBMC. Because it’s software specific he identifies the device on USB as a keyboard, and passes the IR commands as keystrokes used by the popular media platform. Normally, homebrew IR receivers would use LIRC, the Linux Infrared Remote Control software. But this method doesn’t require you to [...]

Tags:  usb receiver keyboard arthur linux-infrared-remote-control remote-control-software infrared-remote-control peripherals hacks  

[Gigawatts] built a pair of USB ports into his mouse and there’s enough room to plug-in small USB drives and dongles. After seeing Thursday’s storage mouse hack he decided to tip us off about the post. He started with a Logitech G5 gaming mouse. The wireless version of this mouse has a battery pack, but [...]

Tags:  gaming usb mouse logitech-g5-gaming-mouse usb-ports dongles peripherals hacks  

[Thice] wanted to try his hand at incorporating a USB driving into other devices. He chose to add storage to his USB mouse but didn’t want to alter the factory look provided by a color-changing LED inside. To make things fit he ended up cutting a good portion of a USB hub’s circuit board off [...]

Tags:  storage usb mouse usb-hub peripherals hacks  

[Julien] built an input device that uses reflected light detected by some photoresistors. Placing your hand above the device will reflect light from the LED back down onto the cadmium-sulfide sensors. The resistance of those sensors is read by four ADC pins on a Teensy microcontroller and translated to mouse movements. In the video after the [...]

Tags:  led device input cadmium-sulfide photoresistors mouse-movements peripherals hacks  

[Brandon Wilson] came up with a way to exploit the Play Station using a TI84 calculator. This uses the same PSGroove open source code that we looked at last week. That package was running on the Teensy, which is currently sold out (we’d guess because people want to run the exploit). There’s a video demonstration [...]

Tags:  calculator way playstation brandon-wilson play-station open-source-code ti84-calculator video-demonstration peripherals hacks  

The keyboard on [Marek's] laptop stopped working. He didn’t want to buy a replacement so he decided to start using an external keyboard. But hauling around a full 104-key model is a bit of a pain so he decided to make himself a shorter keyboard. He basically chopped off the 10-key pad on the right [...]

Tags:  didn laptop keyboard marek external-keyboard key-pad peripherals hacks  

[Manuel] built his own thermal printer based around an Arduino. We’re a bit confused about the parts, his webpage specifies an EFA-1019HW2 print head but the bill of materials on his github shows EPT-1019W2. We can’t find a source for either product number, but we did find similar thermal line printers for as low as [...]

Tags:  printer arduino bit manuel line-printers thermal-printer bill-of-materials peripherals hacks  

[Hasse] built a one-handed video game controller for his brother. He fit everything he needed into the body of an existing controller and came up with a very usable system. The controller will be right-hand only, so the left shoulder button was moved underneath the right side where your middle finger can get at it. [...]

Tags:  gamecube one-handed controller gamecube-controller shoulder-button usable-system peripherals hacks  

[Stewart Allen] acquired a Mindstorm kit about a month ago and he’s already building his own sensors for it. He wanted a more accurate range finder with a narrower measurement field than the stock sensor. Mindstorm has the option to communicate with sensors via an I2C bus. [Stewart] set up an ATtiny45 to act as [...]

Tags:  kit month mindstorm stewart stewart-allen measurement-field sensors i2c-bus peripherals hacks  

[Simon Inns] turned out this VU meter with a 16 RGB LEDs. He’s using three 16-bit TLC5940NTG LED drivers for the project. They’re not cheap chips but they do a great job. If you were looking to save on parts [Simon] found there’s more than enough brightness and any loss due to multiplexing would not [...]

Tags:  rgb leds meter simon simon-inns cheap-chips rgb-leds job peripherals hacks  

This is a concept input device that [Tech B] built for disabled users. The device uses an accelerometer along with a piezo sensor (right click) and a push button (left click) to function as a mouse. The Arduino that resides in a breadboard on the side of the hat communicates with the computer over a [...]

Tags:  click device input piezo-sensor free-input arduino peripherals hacks  

The Seagate FreeAgent Dockstar aims to make all of your stuff available online. It serves that purpose but sometimes you just want more options for controlling your hardware and running some scripts. [Eric Cooper] put together a guide for installing OpenWRT on the Dockstar by building your own kernel and loading it onto the internal [...]

Tags:  seagate openwrt dockstar eric-cooper seagate-freeagent kernel peripherals hacks  

In this instructible, [wkter] takes us through the process of running a Nokia 3310 LCD display using an ATmega8.  This instructible isn’t a beginners project as he assumes you already have a strong understanding of how to work with these components and their programming languages. He is very thorough with information though, providing datasheets, pinout [...]

Tags:  lcd nokia connecting atmega8 nokia-3310 programming-languages peripherals hacks  

[Kenneth Finnegan] is back with another video showing some cool stuff he’s doing to connect his microcontrollers to the internet. Usually, we see this done with a prebuilt module like an iobridge. [Kenneth] is using a Microchip ENC28j60 module for the communication and he’s managed to stuff it all onto a tiny Electroboards piece.  [Kenneth] [...]

Tags:  microcontrollers stuff module kenneth kenneth-finnegan finnegan microchip cool-stuff peripherals hacks  

We don’t know how we missed this when it first came out, but there is a hack out there that combines a .22 caliber pistol with the video game Half-life. Simple is best and that motto is in use here. A wall was built down range to use as a projection screen. Accelerometers mounted on [...]

Tags:  fire caliber half-life caliber-pistol game-half-life accelerometers peripherals hacks  

Did you order that 4-port USB hub because it was almost free but now it’s just sitting in your junk box? Why not turn it into an In System Programmer for AVR chips? [Paul] came up with HUB ISP as an answer to the chicken-or-egg problem we’ve seen with other diy programmers. It uses the [...]

Tags:  system hub usb paul system-programmer egg-problem junk-box peripherals hacks  

The video of [Thibault Brevet's] printer makes it look like he’s actually designed a vinyl cutter (watch it after the break). But at the end of the printing process you see that the top layer was actually a piece of carbon copy paper and the magic was happening underneath. The print head applies enough pressure [...]

Tags:  video pressure printing vinyl-cutter printing-process carbon-copy peripherals hacks  

[Amr Bekhit] converted his gameport joystick to use as a USB joystick. Much like a universal USB joystick interface, this uses an additional microcontroller to talk to the serial bus while monitoring the controls on the stick. [Amr's] discussion about creating HID descriptors is clear and easy to understand. What he’s laid out can be [...]

Tags:  amr hid joystick usb-joystick serial-bus microcontroller peripherals hacks  

[Squirrelfantasy] built a printer using LEGO pieces. It’s not a Mindstorm project but instead depends on some type of development board and some auxiliary components on a protoboard. We couldn’t get a good enough look to tell exactly what makes up the electronics so start the debate in the comments. We feel this is a [...]

Tags:  lego printer nxt lego-pieces auxiliary-components protoboard peripherals hacks  

Looking for motivation to practice morse code [BenB] built this morse code keyboard. It uses USB and is recognized as a standard keyboard thanks to the V-USB stack running on the ATmega168. The project is rounded out with a clean look thanks to the chewing gum container that serves as an enclosure. His design is [...]

Tags:  code keyboard morse morse-code chewing-gum peripherals hacks  

[Matthew Daughtrey] is going to have one of his paws out of service for a while following some hand surgery. Making a living as a coder seems a bit harder with one hand but he was able to find some solutions online only to balk at price tags reaching $600. He came up with a [...]

Tags:  one-armed service hand matthew-daughtrey daughtrey hand-surgery price-tags peripherals hacks  

Anyone who has tried their hand at RPG Maker 1 (or any text input with a controller) knows how difficult it can be typing long paragraphs into the console. [Thutmose] is here to save the day with Kupid 1.0 (2.0 in production). A PICAXE takes ps/2 keyboard input and converts it to a series of [...]

Tags:  keyboard playstation input keyboard-input picaxe thutmose peripherals hacks  

Strumming to punch and changing frets to move, [Alan Chatham] plays Street Fighter using his guitar. It’s been modified to use OpenChord, an open source guitar controller package he developed. This was originally meant to be used with Guitar Hero and the like but as he mentions in the video after the break, it is [...]

Tags:  fighter guitar street alan-chatham hero guitar-controller guitar-hero street-fighter peripherals hacks  

[Elgatoandaluz] has posted this guide on how to tear apart a standard optical mouse and build a custom trackball. He’s using a ping pong ball , mounted above the laser as the trackball itself, which seems like it would be a little lite, but functional. The case is scrap cardboard. We really like that you [...]

Tags:  super elgatoandaluz trackball ping-pong-ball optical-mouse cardboard peripherals hacks  

You may remember seeing the golf glove air guitar hack last month. Here’s two more uses for gloves with sensors on them. On the left is a glove interface with flex sensors on each digit as well as an accelerometer. The VEX module reads the sensors to detect sign language as a command set. A [...]

Tags:  air glove golf flex-sensors golf-glove accelerometer peripherals hacks  

It used to be a major production to build a gun-form-factor FPS controller but commercial tech has adopted many of those traditional hacks over the years. Now, [Nirav Patel] is playing Cube with a Wii zapper and a SpacePoint. All that was really required to make this happen is a patch to Cube, the open [...]

Tags:  controller cube fps wii-zapper nirav-patel wii peripherals hacks  

[Michu] used his old Palm IIIc to make a serial interface for his OpenWRT router. It’s a matter of cracking open both the router and the Palm device, then connecting the TTL lines from the router to the MAX 3386e level converter chip inside the Palm. From there, Pocketterm can connect to the router’s serial [...]

Tags:  serial palm router max ttl-lines converter-chip palm-device peripherals hacks  

One complaint we hear about often is ear-bud’s cables getting tangled within backpacks. [Andrew] was having this “spaghetti” wire problem, and also wanted to listen to his music with ear protection on – where ear-buds are usually uncomfortable. The latter problem is fixed by placing speakers inside of folding ear protectors, and the cable is [...]

Tags:  problem wire ear andrew ear-buds ear-bud ear-protectors peripherals hacks  

WaitingForFriday’s [Simon Inns] is quite possibly the USB interface and PIC master. This week he let us know about his VU-meter repurposed as a computer performance monitor using a PIC18F2550 and his open source USB Generic HID communication class. With PWM the meter’s needles and RGB LED can be accurately set and even dampened for [...]

Tags:  vu-meter usb pic simon-inns pic-master communication-class repurposed peripherals hacks  

[Alex Rosiu] picked up this instrument cluster from a 1992 BMW. After some trial and error he’s hooked it up for use with a racing simulator. You can see how amazingly well it works in the video after the break. An Arduino Mega takes incoming data from the PC and actuates the appropriate indicators on [...]

Tags:  sim racing car alex-rosiu instrument-cluster incoming-data real-car peripherals hacks  

This one could be a game changer. [Chris Harrison] and a team of researchers are showing off a method of using your arm as an input device. An arm band worn by the user picks up acoustic signatures created by tapping on your arm with the other hand, or taping your fingers and thumb together [...]

Tags:  ARM device input chris-harrison acoustic-signatures arm-band peripherals hacks  

Here’s another SNES controller converted to house a USB system. The one we saw last time used a kit as an adapter for the controller but this version uses a home-built PCB and an ATmega8 microcontroller with the latest revision of an open source adapter for NES and SNES controllers. As you can see after [...]

Tags:  adapter controller snes snes-controllers usb-system microcontroller peripherals hacks  

[Lesa Wright] just started selling enclosure kits used to convert a Wacom tabet into a Cintiq clone. You need to start with your own Wacom tablet, there are kits for four different models. You’ll also need to track down some other parts: a compatible laptop LCD screen, controller kit, and some cable extenders. From there, [...]

Tags:  kit wacom tablet wright laptop-lcd-screen compatible-laptop enclosure-kits peripherals hacks  

There’s something viscerally pleasing about simple solutions. [Kip] came up with one in the form of a scratch controller. The spindle from an optical drive is used to hold a CD in place, which acts as the LP for scratching. The sensor from an optical mouse is mounted upside down below the CD and detects [...]

Tags:  controller diy scratch kip simple-solutions optical-drive optical-mouse peripherals hacks  

This [Dwight Shrute]-esque project will let you try out your taxidermy skills. Apparently you can acquire a ‘wetware’ mouse fresh or frozen from pet stores. We just need to wait until fall when our pantry is visited by the less-domesticated variety. A travel-sized optical mouse acts as the replacement guts. Some creative dremeling brings the plastic [...]

Tags:  coffee mouse shop dwight-shrute coffee-shop pet-stores optical-mouse peripherals hacks  

One of the worst moments almost every hacker has experienced is a hard drive inexplicably dieing. And of course, its at the most inopportune time and you’ve had no chance to backup! Recently there has been an influx of Seagate hard drives (specifically the 2700.11s) kicking the bucket with firmware errors 0LBA and BSY. The good [...]

Tags:  bsy fix lba inopportune-time influx seagate peripherals hacks  

[Maximilian Ernestus] sent us a quick little demo that shows him using a rotary phone dial as a num pad. We’re often frustrated when notebooks and netbooks prohibit us from using our mad 10-key skills (alternate key mapping doesn’t count). This makes coding and using GnuCash undesirable on small form factor portables. Instead of fixing the [...]

Tags:  productivity num pad maximilian-ernestus rotary-phone num-pad key-mapping peripherals hacks  

[Techb] had a friend who was paralyzed after an accident and could no long use a computer. He rigged up an amazingly simple mouse interface using python to implement infrared tracking. The controller was built from an old hat by adding an IR LED and wireless mouse modified so that the button could be clicked [...]

Tags:  python techb mouse mouse-interface wireless-mouse old-hat peripherals hacks  

[thetanktheory] sent us his glove mouse modification.  He has gutted his mouse and mounted the parts on a glove. This is interesting, as he doesn’t have to place his hand on the mouse any more, he just plops it down on any surface and starts mousing.  He claims that it is helping his twitch reactions [...]

Tags:  glove thetanktheory mouse twitch peripherals hacks  

How’s this for a first microcontroller project: a ticker that pulls messages from the Internet and scrolls them on a set of numitrons. [David Barton] built this using an mbed microcontroller. Tapping an ethernet library he got this to pull data from his server by connecting directly to the cat5 cables. The display consists of [...]

Tags:  numitron internet microcontroller david-barton cat5-cables microcontroller-project peripherals hacks  

We’re not going to debate the necessity of this one. [Todd] plays online games that will log you out after a few minutes of inactivity. To resolve this, he has created a circuit that mimics keyboard activity at a preset interval. While he notes that there is software for this, he points out that many [...]

Tags:  keyboard necessity keepalive todd keyboard-activity inactivity interval peripherals hacks  

[Firestorm_x1] put together a tutorial about interfacing an analog joystick with a microcontroller. These analog sticks are easy to find; he got his from Goodwill but we’ve got a couple in our junk box right now. The stick uses variable resistors to report its position so it’s just a matter of reading and interpreting that [...]

Tags:  analog interfacing joystick analog-joystick variable-resistors analog-sticks peripherals hacks  

You can pick up a Wii Motion Plus module for under $20 and that’s not bad for an I2C gyroscope. This hack taps into the device through a PC parallel port. The connection calls for some level conversion to step down to the 3.3v needed by the module. The communication protocol borrows from the Wii [...]

Tags:  wii motion module pc-parallel-port communication-protocol peripherals hacks  

[Stefan] sent in this project writeup to show us how he used a stepper motor as a rotary encoder. Using a stepper motor as an encoder isn’t really that new, as [Stefan] points out, we’ve seen it several times before. He wanted to use this in the quickest simplest way with his computer though. Instead [...]

Tags:  encoder motor stepper stefan rotary-encoder stepper-motor soundcard peripherals hacks